PC elections to be held on same day

The 20th Amendment to the Constitution has been gazetted to hold all Provincial Council Elections on the same day and Parliament would determine the date on which all Provincial councils stand dissolved.

The Amendment published on July 28 and uploaded online on August 3 also states that the “date on which all elections would be held should not be “later than the expiration of the term of the last constitute Provincial Council”.

A second gazette issued to amend the Provincial Councils Elections Act No 2 of 1988 seeks to substitute the word ‘Within one week’ to ‘an election to such Council’ and ‘Within one week from the date specified in terms of Article 154DD of the Constitution’ to ‘the Commissioner shall publish a notice of his intention to hold an election to all Provincial Councils’.

Elections Commissioner Mahinda Deshapriya in June had stated that preparations were being made to hold the Provincial Council elections in October of this year as the terms of the Eastern, North Central and Sabaragamuwa Provincial Councils were set to expire between September 6 and October 1,2017.

The Central,Northern and North Western Provincial Councils in the meantime are set to expire in September of 2018, the Western and Southern in March of 2019 and the Uva Provincial Council would expire in September 2019.

According to the previous provisions, elections are to be held within one week of the term of the Council having expired but with the new amendments, all elections could be held off until the expiration of Uva’s term in 2019.

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